When Trump and Putin go head to head, who wins?

We are about to have confirmed what we already know: only one of these men has clarity of thought, writes Sean O'Grady

- By Sean O'Grady

Even by Donald Trump's standards, his pre-match assessment of how his bilateral meeting with his Russian counterpart would play out was bullish.

“We’re going to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin,” he told a news conference at the White House. “And at the end of that meeting - probably in the first two minutes - I'll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made. Cos that's what I do - I make deals."

It's typical Trump: boastful, bereft of meaning and utterly unconvincing.

On Friday, when Trump welcomes the Russian president to talks in Alaska, like a python eyeing a particularly plump suckling piglet, Putin will squeeze the spirit out of him, and then eat him for breakfast, as he has on each and every occasion when this tragically unevenly matched pair have had cause to interact.

Steve Witkoff, Trump's equally hapless envoy, has already served as an amuse-bouche for the predatory Putin. The cunning and ruthless former KGB officer will soon get the better of this hapless real estate bumbler, too - because the central fact about Trump is hiding in plain sight and requires no detailed psychological profiling: the guy's all over the place.